Chelsea 2-1 Manchester City: counter-attack versus possession play but both attack in behind

October 28, 2013

The starting line-ups

Two ex-Atletico strikers – Fernando Torres and Sergio Aguero – were the most prominent players in a fast-paced, exciting clash.

Jose Mourinho played Gary Cahill rather than David Luiz, and left out Juan Mata with Andre Schurrle and Eden Hazard on the wings. Torres started after his two goals against Schalke in midweek.

Manuel Pellegrini used Martin Demichelis for the first time, played three central midfielders with Yaya Toure pushed to the top of the triangle, two ball-players on the flanks, and Aguero upfront alone.

Joe Hart’s huge error in the 90th minute decided the game, and overall this was evenly balanced.

Difference in style

On one hand, these two sides were playing utterly different styles. Mourinho wants his side to be efficient in possession, energetic down the flanks and devastating on the counter-attack, and the attacking trio fielded behind Torres represents his best pure counter-attacking format this season.

Pellegrini’s favoured style of play is based around ball retention, and here his starting selection offered more possession quality than ever before. This was the first time he’d used Javi Garcia, Fernandinho and Toure together in the same side, the first time he’d used Aguero upfront alone, and only the second time he’d used both Samir Nasri and David Silva on the flanks. This was a line-up selected to retain the ball in central positions.

The difference between the sides was particularly stark when you compared the passes received by the two sets of wide players:

City approach

The main talking point was Pellegrini’s overall starting selection – was he right to have omitted a proper number nine in preference for a holding midfielder? Daniel Storey at Football365 makes a decent argument that the approach played into the hands of a counter-attacking Chelsea side.

But the midfield selection was intended to prevent Chelsea counter-attacking through the middle. Even when City have been on fine form, and demolished Newcastle and Manchester United 4-0 and 4-1 respectively, the Fernandinho-Toure combination has looked prone to direct attacks through the centre of the pitch, as neither is a natural holding midfielder. City leave too much space between the lines with that midfield combination, and Oscar – Chelsea’s key player – surely would have had a field day had Pellegrini selected his usual 4-4-2ish shape.

There remain significant questions about Garcia’s ability, but simply by being another body in a deep central midfield position, he performed his role adequately in this contest. Oscar’s counter-attacking skill against a disjointed Schalke side in midweek was not replicated here, and he had little influence – aside from one clever turn midway through the first half to prompt a quick attack.

On this topic, the other question is about whether City’s possession-based approach pushed them too high up the pitch, leaving space in behind for the home side to break into.

The alternative would have been to sit much deeper, not insisting upon possession dominance and preventing Chelsea from constructing any counter-attacks – but the debutante centre-back partnership of Demichelis and Matija Nastasic would have been under huge pressure for long periods. It’s also not City’s natural approach. Playing higher up the pitch probably made sense overall, but there were clear problems with the defensive line in isolation.

City’s back four

Somewhat confusingly, City’s problems with balls played in behind seemed most obvious when they’d cleared the first ball at a set-piece, which would suggest the problem was with the positioning of the defence as a unit, rather than being indicative of a flawed overall approach from Pellegrini.

For example, Cahill’s early volley came from one of these situations, as did the incident when Torres attempted to chest the ball into the net from a Ramires cross. City’s back four were keen to take up a position on the edge of the box, but lacked a commanding centre-back – ie Vincent Kompany – to make the clearances when crosses were whipped in behind.

Chelsea’s opener came from Torres’ burst down the right, squaring for Schurrle’s tap-in. He had worked the channels very nicely all game, and although it was a slightly different type of attack to the manner Chelsea had previously been threatening from, it involved attacking the City defence directly, before the midfield could provide a shield.

Space behind the defences

The key to this game was attacking the space behind the defences. With Torres and Aguero roaming the channels and sprinting in behind, both sides needed to get the ball into the zone between opposition back four and goalkeeper.

Whereas Chelsea managed to do this because of City’s high defensive line, the away side had more problems. Overall, their midfield passing was actually very good – Silva orchestrated play wonderfully from between the lines, and Nasri’s impact was also impressive – doing something similar from the right.

But the long build-up play allowed Chelsea to defend deeper and deeper, until Cahill and John Terry were within their own penalty area. City had penetrative passes, and they also had runs in behind the defenders, but because Chelsea were defending so deep, City’s attackers found themselves receiving these through-balls at extremely narrow angles, unable to shoot. Silva twice collected passes almost on the byline, while Aguero had two efforts from very acute angles on the right.

For Aguero’s goal on 49 minutes, the difference was that City attacked directly through the centre of the pitch, giving Chelsea’s back four no time to adjust. They played three vertical passes – Garcia to Silva, Silva to Nasri, Nasri to Aguero. When the pass was played, Cahill and Terry were 30 yards away from goal, whereas when defending against City’s through-balls in the first half, they were often only 15 yards from goal. The finish was still hit from an amazing angle, but it was a much better chance.

Final quarter

The substitutes had relatively little impact on the shape of game, although arguably both managers made attacking changes in search of the winning goal. Perhaps the most surprising move, however, was Pellegrini’s decision to replace Nasri with Jesus Navas down the right, presumably an attempt to stretch the play.

But Nasri had been performing well, and was a key part of City’s gameplan – he also got the assist for Aguero’s goal. The shape City had at the end of the game – with Navas and Aleksandar Kolarov wide and Alvaro Negredo upfront alone – seemed more geared to a direct approach, which was a strange late shift in strategy.

Eventually, Hart and Nastastic’s mix-up resulted in Torres’ winner – a complete freak goal. But in the sense that involved Torres running past the defence from the channel, it summed up the game. Both sides were attacking the space in behind.

Conclusion

This was a game shaped by contrasting strategies but ultimately decided by a shocking individual error.

Chelsea rarely managed to counter-attack from their own half at great speed – that was partly because of Pellegrini strengthening his midfield zone, which also resulted in some very neat interplay in the final third.

But both sides thrived when they could attack in behind the opposition defence quickly. City’s back four seemed particularly troubled when asked to turn, while Chelsea’s back four knew their limitations and defended deep when they could – Aguero’s goal was a rare example of them being spun quickly.

at times i am really not able to understand the psyche of the coaches and why do they get so defensive and think negative . on defense toure would try to drop on ramires and stop instead had it been the case that toure would had let ramires had the free reign but just press him when he is too deep and just play alongside agureo or in the hole . city would had benifitted more . in the past manicini had retorted to such tactics and had very good results . instead here toure kept on coming deep and aguero got isolated upfront . instead had he had a player along side him and had the chance to run on terry or cahill chelsea would had been in taters and would had been pushed back .

to be honest both the teams had the same lineup but i suppose chelsea were much more successful in their tactics . they were able to stretch city more . city just kept on playing in the middle both nasri and silva kept coming narrowing the city’s offense had one of them stayed wide then it would had been better .

what toure was suppose to do with chelsea defense ramires was doing with city . he was very energetic and just terrorized city’s defense with his pace .

to be honest at times i question as to why toure’s in the team . people expect him to make the runs but it is not possible in every game and opposition do keep a good eye on him . he is not a number 10 . nor can he be a winger and as the game moves on he is not able to cope up with pace of the game . he seems to wane down . players avoid getting one on one with him and just play around him .

ALEX_AFC on October 28, 2013 at 2:10 pm

Think your analysis is wrong. Chelsea played attacking football but had little less of the ball due to City having an extra man in central midfield. Both teams were compact and defended deep when the opponent had the ball so as to leave no space between the lines and behind. CFC could have been 2 or 3 up at half time so I think the result is a fair result as they had the better chances. Great game of football nonetheless.

Kay on October 28, 2013 at 3:17 pm

You need to understand that there were different developments during the game. City’s goal for instance resulted from chelsea keeping a high line. But overall chelsea defended deep. So cannot say this analysis is wrong. This is not a minute-by-minute analysis but a summary of tactics overall

James Rachels on October 28, 2013 at 2:24 pm

Perfect analysis! Much better than the Guardian piece. Sometimes it is difficult to write good analysis in a short newspaper column.

kay on October 28, 2013 at 3:07 pm

You need to understand that there were different developments during the game. City’s goal for instance resulted from chelsea keeping a high line. But overall chelsea defended deep. So cannot say this analysis is wrong. This is not a minute-by-minute analysis but a summary of tactics overall.

Simon# on October 28, 2013 at 3:20 pm

good stuff as usual ZM. still makes me chuckle ppl raving about city’s squad. looking at those line-ups….where are the goals for City ? apart from aguero obviously. nasri, silva , toure ( or navas) have no track record of getting into double figures. you could fancy at least 2 of chelsea’s line of 3 to do so. ( plus mata given the chance) their weakness is obv a striker. have been glimpses from torres & eto’o now , so lets see if they can keep it up. certainly with Jose keeping it tight at the back, 1 goal may often be enough. the less said about city’s defensive cover, the better.

Sid Celery on October 29, 2013 at 3:36 am

Two factors missing\underplayed:

Chelsea’s “in” often came from kicks from Cech to Ivanovic just beyond the halfway-line, who received the ball unchallenged and flicked on to Schurrle or Torres beyond the City defensive midfielders, where the defenders also consistently refused to try and step ahead to intercept the ball for fear of getting turned. While not always (or even often) successful, Chelsea’s forwards were able to turn and run directly onto the defence. Eventually Chelsea broke through when Torres went past Clichy on the outside and Demichelis couldn’t track Schurrle. Similarly, it was a Torres direct run off the ball (2nd half) that forced Garcia into his deliberate and targeted elbow as his only way of stopping a run through a gap in the defence. City were never comfortable on the edge of their area.

Secondly, I’d say the subs did change the game, but in a negative rather than positive way, particularly for City. Kolarov came on to double-up full-backs against the fresh legs of Willian and Ivanovic on their left, but that forced Toure to come back from his more advanced position to move alongside Fernandinho. Negredo was less directly threatening on the deck than Aguero, who’d lost his edge by that late point, but as highlighted, Terry won every aerial ball so Negredo was completely ineffective. Both allowed Chelsea greater ease to return the ball forward in those last 10 minutes.

What was intended to shore up the game at the end turned out to be an Achilles heel.

Don’t you think Pellegrini could have tried his “424″ animation with Negredo on top ? Against Bayern, Yaya and Fernandinho had a painful game, but it was against a team that held the ball a lot. Chelsea is much different. Plus maybe, Silva and Nasri’s numerous moves inside would have produce this “help” they weren’t able to give against bayern, and create this 3 against 2 in the heart of the pitch.

wee pat on October 29, 2013 at 11:47 am

A lot of Chelsea moves this season have started with Ivanovic in space. I’m not sure whether opposition managers are actively leaving him as the least talented technical attacker in the Chelsea first team, or if there’s another reason.

Aaron on October 30, 2013 at 1:39 pm

One of the main reasons is that Ferguson once remarked (after Man Utd beat Chelsea) that their game plan (in part) had been to let Ivanovic have the ball as he produced so little with it – it gave them a free man elsewhere on the pitch.

Which makes me wonder. Ivanovic, and any Chelsea coach/manager, would now be aware of this comment/tactic and so, if Ivanovic is going to play that role (FB), he needs to get better going forward.

Has he, in any measurable sense? Not in terms of goals from set plays (always a strong part of his game) but, say, shot assists, completed passes in the final third, completed crosses, successful dribbles?

Could be an interesting feature.

Gael Clichy's cement boots on October 30, 2013 at 4:23 pm

He as hasn’t become much more technically adept or creative but Mourinho has used his skills very effectively in attacking build-ups. As other posters have noted, many of Chelsea’s attacks came from long passes to Ivanovic in an advanced position then he would make a headed pass beyond the opposition midfield. In my opinion this is a great tactic since it compensates for Chelsea’s deep-midfielders lack of ability to pass their way through the opposition. It also creates a mismatch between Ivanovic (probably Chelsea’s strongest player, aerially) and fullbacks or midfielders who usually aren’t much good in the air.

wee pat on October 30, 2013 at 7:07 pm

it’s slightly frustrating that he isn’t more creative, as he every now and then pulls of an excellent cross or piece of technique, suggesting he has more attacking ability than he uses. I do think Chelsea would look a more dangerous team against weaker, defensively set-up sides if they played Azpilicueta

Elwood on October 31, 2013 at 12:16 am

Great defender, terrible crosser… That’s why I always see Ivanovic as a centreback. But obviously Mourinho likes his solidity and aerial ability over attacking qualities even in his fullback positions.